I always wonder what happens when I screw up in the middle of the night and need someone to talk to. Or someone to listen to me. Or really just someone to hold me and tell me everything will be okay.

I was once that person to someone else. In many ways, I still am.

It's funny how you can be someone incredible for one person out of the bazillions in this world and when you need a return favor you get nothing. Not because the other person is a bad person, mind you, just that he or she doesn't understand.

One of my fears is incomprehension.

The same goes for needing someone. I've been needed in the past. And as if waking from a dream, I've had almost everyone taken away from me, one after another falling just out of my grasp. It is clear that some of my friendships are not equivalence relations as assumed.

One of my fears is solitude.

I like how I came up with these fancy names for my fears because I didn't want to keep saying the same strung out, long-winded phrase every time I wanted to describe each of them. Words are great symbols, but they do a horrible job when they don't communicate effectively. While I use these words to describe what I am afraid of, I must also spew out several thousand more just to effectively get my point across.

And still, folks don't understand.

*sigh* I'm getting better at knowing who to go to for advice and who to just "give up" on and not even try chatting to in the first place. In fact, some of those folks are you guys, the readers of this blog. I can't even end with a "you know who you are" remark because no, you don't know who you are. You won't figure out who you are. That's just the way it is and that's what I'll just have to deal with.

=/

It's weird, I don't think anyone has ever had the guts to come up to me and say, "I don't know what you're talking about, and I may not be able to understand right now, but I'll work on getting it." Everyone assumes knowledge is binary, as if progress can never be made and things can never be known. "I suck at math," always means "I can never learn math." Oh, but you can! There is this thing called "time" which lets us become stronger over time. It's obvious that you're not the same person you were when you were first born but no one seems to apply that on a smaller scale.

I've met people who never learn. I've been friends with some and even dated some. All stuck on ideologies or habits or principles and never budging, not because they're stubborn, but because they never see a need to or a will to. Will you continue to look at the world through the same lenses for the rest of your life?

Perhaps I need more faith. Perhaps I need to see those around me and just hope they're hiding secrets, that they just put on masks in the morning and never take them off for anybody. The thing is, I'm sick of guessing what people are up to and what they're thinking and how it all fits together. It's enough to drive a person mad.

That's right, being optimistic makes me crazy. I'd much rather let folks prove themselves to me. After all, this is the system that most of us abide by in the first place. We want to make sure we're communicating with someone who's on the same page as us. If they're not, we just waste time and energy trying to convince someone of something they don't want to or cannot believe in.

I'm writing this at a time when I should be doing homework. What else is new? I'm stressed out and my fears are taking hold of me stronger than ever. I'm screwing up in a lot of ways right now. I try to keep a smile on my face but it just isn't fun anymore. This guy I know wrote in his blog that he was pondering his life and probably knew that this thinking of his was a bad habit.

It's a bad habit if you want to go out and live life, if you want to be happy. It's a grand habit if you want to live a quality life, though. Thing is, only those who spend the time thinking will appreciate the higher quality of life you've brought to the table. The rest will go on leading their regular lives because that kind of generic brand life will be just fine for them.

I sound like a snob when it comes to analyzing my life. A lot of times, I feel like a snob. Sometimes I really wonder why I do this to myself.

No reasons are coming to mind at the moment.

I'm wearing some pants that just came out of the dryer and they are toasty... Wouldn't it be neat to have heated dressers, for when it's really cold out? Hurry, someone grab my idea and run with it! :D

I always found it rather bothersome that I have this habit of going to my Last.fm page and refreshing it when I'm listening to music. I'm always so interested in the statistics telling me what I've been listening to, who I've been listening to, etc. And then when I go to a friend's page -- like my buddy Tom -- I can see what he listens to as well as how our tastes match up. In general, I like raw data statistics and I like statistics based on statistics.

Tom and I were talking in the kitchen today about how great it would be to get accurate statistics on how many calories we consumed, how far we've walked, what activities we've spent time doing, etc. Basically, statistics on everything! It would be pretty interesting, to say the least.

I feel like screaming right now. >:O

I'm not angry, just... stressed. Stressed out because I get stressed out easily. There's so much to do! And I think there may be some Fear involved in my decision making lately...

The crappiest part about blogging some of these actual interesting and important issues is that people I know who don't know me just freak the Hell out and think I'm going bat crazy or something.

First,

This blog is a discourse for my thoughts. For intelligent thinking. We go places that aren't found in every day conversation, just every day living. if you can't handle the heat, then GTFO. (I don't mean to be vulgar, it's just an expression meant to imply that you're probably in over your head here and most likely causing more harm than good by misinterpreting things in a negative manner.) I feel like if I were to cater to the folks who come here asking for everything to be spelled out, I'd be writing novels every blog post. And then we wouldn't get anywhere in a timely manner. I'm all about not wasting your time, folks. :)

Oh, and second,

I'm already bat crazy. :P

SO, for now I'm going to focus on doing readings and writing an application essay and doing homework. Social interactions, you're on hold. After all, your tendency to interrupt my actual work is most of the time just a manifestation of Fear. I'm done with Fear this semester. After having it consume my life for the first two years of college, I'm actively working to combat it.

:/ It's always tough when you've got a "real life" to tend to at the same time as you're trying to figure something out. That's usually why I'm an advocate for the transplant of these types of discussions into every day discussion. But for the parenthetical reason noted above, we can't have that. Instead we talk about sports and movies and music and even physics and computer science. All great topics, mind you, just not nearly as fulfilling as having a "life" conversation with someone you love.

Or someone you don't love, actually. Honestly, at this point I'm not picky. :)

Just got to reading some old blog posts today. I'm thinking about how much I've changed and what I've spent all my time doing in college. Also, what I've got to say for myself for the past several years. So this is what I want to say.

I've kept a blog because I want a record of who I've been. Not so much a history of what I've done, but mostly an imprint of who I've been. My attitudes, philosophies, habits, and interests have all changed over the years and my blog lets me figure out why they have grown in the manner in which they have.

So if my future employer asks me what I've done in college, I'll be sure to add that in addition to going to class and getting a degree, I've been keeping track of who I've been and figuring out where I'm headed. It's not enough to just learn information about the world around me; I might as well figure out a bit about the world within.

Often I like to believe that very few others actually spend the time to reflect on who they are. I'd like to explain myself a bit further here: most people do reflect, but they just aren't as thorough as me. For cryin' out loud, just look at this blog! I've just recently broken 800 posts over the past five years and I'm not stopping anytime soon. This is a record of my life. I'm not blogging about sports or music or technology; this is a gateway into something more fundamental, more personal. And hopefully, more universal.

Quickly, here is a post I really liked. It mentioned a bit about how posts are constructed, and my friend Kelley commented on the post and it just makes me happy and sad at the same time because I miss her. :( Which brings me to the title for this post, "Conversations about life."

I honestly don't remember the last time I had a meaningful conversation about life. I remember a few drunk friends reminiscing about relationships... But that wasn't about life... So much of today's conversations are filled with pop culture and nerd references and all this other hullabaloo that isn't nearly as exciting to me as talking about life.

I miss sitting in a restaurant and commenting on our current social situation as two people observing other people do things.

I miss sitting out on the grass with some new friends in the middle of autumn, asking each other questions about desired super powers or ketchup vs. mustard or even just pondering how we reached that moment in time.

I miss having conversations about things that matter. Like conversations about life. :) I've read posts I've written about topics that weren't relevant until years later, spawning applications I never thought possible. Why is everything so connected? How can I find out more about this wonderful world?

I have this idea in my head of this perfect girl out there and we're just trying to find each other. It's amazing. And someday, I'm going to meet her, and we'll just know that we finally found each other and everything is going to be just fine.

It's a dream of mine but we all need something real to hold onto, to keep us moving. Someone with which to wander...

This week has finally become fruitful. :) I knew I'd figure out something sometime, I just wasn't sure when or where. Now that I know, I can share. :P

I've been really bitter lately. Listening to Shostakovich hasn't helped dampen it, no, but it's definitely allowed me to look at my bitterness in better light. A few days ago I was able to not only accept my bitterness but to embrace it. After all, it is a feeling and I am prone to having them. :D My abstract emotions always reflect on something else that I feel strongly about. In addition to my general sentiment about being this random smattering of "talent" who can't quite fit in anywhere, I'm also bitter about friendships. In particular, friendships where I expect too much.

To preface, this isn't one of those amateur posts where "I expect too much and I get hurt." That's part of it, but that's only the surface. This ain't some teenager's Xanga, folks! So when I say I expect too much, sometimes it's me just expecting a little bit and not even getting that. If you look at my apartment and how cluttered it is, you'll see a good example of that.

My roommates are great. I enjoy them for their minds and personalities but not so much their cleanliness. :) So... there's that. And that bitterness is shallow and fades after a bit. But then there's the bitterness tied to expecting a friend to come through for you like he or she did in the past. And they don't. Ever again.

:/

People change, friendships change. And often as the case may be, it just has to be dealt with. Personally, I've always felt that if I got close to someone, I'd stay close no matter what. Like say, a girlfriend. :/ Never would I imagine that these types of friendships are conditional! Or at least, for some people. For me, they never will be. If you date me and you're close to me then, you can still expect the same level of amicable closeness if something goes wrong and we're no longer dating.

This is and has always been my standard.

So... Now that that is understood, I've really just got to finish out the rest of this week by getting all of my stuff done. :) The new mental discoveries will take a bit of time to settle but I can already sense the change in character.